Acts 17:16-23

Chapter 61

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast set us in a dream of mystery, and we have no answer to the mocking voice; nor can we tell how to follow the luring hand. Thou hast made us, and not we ourselves, for surely we would not have made ourselves as we are. Behold! we know nothing as it really is; whilst we are looking the meaning escapes us. Even in the act of saying "We live," behold we die. Eternity is nearer than time. Thou art nearer to us than we can ever be to ourselves. These are the mysteries which make us glad with morning light, and which sometimes burden us with all the darkness of midnight. We are in joy and yet in sorrow. We live and die in the same moment. We are slaves on the one side, and yet have the liberty of the skies on the other. So hast thou made us, and we are in great trouble. We do not touch things, or see them, or know them in their reality. We are mocked, and laughed at, and put down and scorned yet are we applauded and hailed and crowned. This is the infinite mystery, and in our heart there is no answer. We come to thy Book, and read its large letters, and there the light shines. We see in thy Book that we are made in God's image and likeness; charged with responsibilities of the sublimest range and quality; called to high action and to heroic sacrifice and to patient suffering; promised that the day will soon dawn, and the shadows flee away, and the great answer of love cover all the mystery of pain. It is a noble voice, it is music from heaven; hearing it, the chains drop from our limbs, and sweet, glad liberty calls us into its noble companionship. We therefore will live in Christ; we will study his heart and will; we will watch his footprints and put our feet into them; we will give ourselves up to his guidance, and go as he may lead. "Jesus, still lead on." We would escape the dark valley, and the deep river, and the thick wood, where the beast of prey lies in wait. We would like to walk on velvet grass, along summer paths, to watch the cloudless blue and hear the birds which are all song; but be it as thou wilt, not as we will; only be thou thyself there, and the valley shall be as the hill, and the great hill shall be part of heaven. Thy love in time past is our surety for the future. We have been girded by thee, even when we knew it not; invisible hands have held us up; kind ministries, not of earth, have nourished and sustained us. We have had bread in the wilderness, and flowers have been found for us among the rocks. So we will not fear, nor tremble, nor die; but stand surely in the love of the Cross, and find our victory in the Son of God. Come to us as we need thee, thou healing One. Breathe upon us the breath of sweet summer. Come with early flowers, and tell us that they are promises of fuller beauty. Speak to us some word of tender comfort, and our heart shall grow quite young again, and all our strength shall come back in full current, and we shall forget our trouble in our joy. Thou wilt not disappoint us; thou delightest to satisfy the soul, and not to mock it. Feed us with the bread sent down from heaven. Comfort us with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and fill us with the inspiration of his love and Cross. May we live as he lived, and being crucified with him, may we rise again in his glory.

Bless the strangers within our gates, and give them to feel a sense of home and rest and security. Regard the stranger who is not often in thy house, but who has looked in today to see what is here and what is being done. May he see great sights and hear voices not of earth. Heal those whom we cannot heal, and speak comfortably to such as lie beyond the reach of our poor voice. As for the dying, carry them straight through the deep, black river, and set their weary feet on the other side, and in heaven's light they will forget the gloom of earth. The Lord's light be our day; the Lord's kind smile our heaven; the Lord's great voice our continual inspiration. Amen.

Act 17:16-23

16. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked [1 Corinthians 13:5 . This argues not Paul's lack of charity, but the heinous-ness of idolatry, which can "provoke the Lord to jealousy," 1Co 10:22 ] within him, as he beheld the city full of idols [ritual show; covering Athens' moral and political decay ].

17. So he reasoned [see note on Act 17:2 ] in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market-place every day with them that met with him.

18. And certain also of the Epicurean [Materialist] and Stoic [Pantheistic] philosophers encountered him. And some said, What would this babbler [Ar. Av. 232, used of the chattering crows who pick up seeds; then of parasites and of brain pilferers ] say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached Jesus and the resurrection [A.D. 474 Justinian suppressed the chairs of the successors of these philosophers on the ground that Christianity had rendered them obsolete].

19. And they took hold of him and brought him unto the Areopagus [the council of the Areopagus, the 600, and the demos were the three political powers in Athens, still left by Roman courtesy a "free city." The Areopagus had gained, as the others had lost, by the conquest; it now concerned itself more with education and religion, and many inscriptions attest its jurisdiction in the matter of the erection of altars and statues], saying, May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee?

20. For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.

21. (Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new [G. " newer " later than the previous news; Luke's order of the words hints they sometimes "told" before they had "heard" this "newer"] thing.)

22. And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus [not upon his trial, but invited, as a foreign savant is sometimes invited to address the French Institute], and said, Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are somewhat [are in character] superstitious [G. "God-fearing" or religious. To begin the speech with this gross blunder, "superstitious," was as impossible for the inspired orator as it has been easy for the Vulgate and its English transcribers].

23. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar, with this inscription, To an unknown God [Pausanias, i. 1, 4, and Philostratus, Fit. Ap. vi. 2, inform us that there were several altars " of unknown gods"; Diogenes Laertes, Ephesians 3:0 , that sheep were sacrificed on the occasion of a plague " to the God concerned " and that therefore " anonymous altars" are found in Athens]. What therefore ye worship in ignorance [" as agonistics" ], this set I forth unto you.

Paul At Athens

THIS was Paul's method of "waiting"! The "waiting" of some men is infinitely more energetic than the toil of others. Paul might be said not to be doing anything just now. He was in Athens alone, "waiting" for Silas and Timotheus. He needs rest; he will now sit down and be quiet, and recover himself after recent experiences. It is interesting to note that Paul was waiting. But how could Paul wait? The two words do not go happily together. Paul waiting! He cannot wait. Life is short; the enemy is at hand; the opportunity enlarges around him; and he who was left by the brethren in an attitude of waiting begins to burn. A paroxysm (for that is the literal word) seizes his heart. His soul is stirred within him; a paroxysm of agony seizes his whole nature when he sees such a sight as he had never beheld before a city wholly given to idolatry. One historian tells us that in ancient Athens it was easier to find a god than a man that is to say, the idols were so numerous as almost entirely to fill the whole city. Wherever a marble god could be put up, there he was set. Paul was a Jew, and had not been trained in schools of images; he was not an artist any more than he was a classical scholar. To him images were forbidden. "Thou shalt not make to thyself the likeness of anything that is in heaven, or that is on the earth," was ringing in Paul's ears; and when he was made to understand that the people actually worshipped, or in some sense religiously reverenced, those idols, his spirit was thrown into a paroxysm. He was not simply moved, superficially agitated; he was not the subject of a new and transient sensation: he was writhing in an unfelt and unknown agony. Religion does not destroy Art, but it destroys its superstitious uses. Christianity says to beauty, "Stand there; I will look at thee, I love thee; come to me with new suggestions of dawning light and broader glory than I have yet realized; but do not expect me to pray to thee. "In Athens the human form was worshipped. To be perfect in form was to be Divine. Paul never cared for form, for its own sake. He saw the religious intent of everything, and if the religious intent was not healthy, holy, and real, he broke the image. He was an ardent Christian. We are Christians, but not ardent Athens was wholly given to idolatry. You cannot stop at one idol. One idol brings another. There is no stopping-place in idolatry until the very last little niche is filled with such god as it will hold. This law has also its force and sweep in higher directions. You cannot stop with one virtue one singular and isolated excellence. It is not excellence if you so use it. If the supposed excellence be figured as an angel, then you are unjust to the heavenly spirit. You deprive the celestial visitant of companionship; your piety is cruel. The law is impartial; vices go in groups; piety is a whole excellence and not a partial virtue. The Athenians covered their irreligious lives by these religious forms. "Fill the city with gods, and let us live as we like," was the Athenian philosophy it is ours too! Do not stand up in Christian pride, boasting over Athenian paganism. We play the same trick; we are caught in the same intoxication. "Found another society, and let us live at home as we please." "Start another mission, and let us play what pranks we like under the darkness." "Build five hundred more churches and set them all in a row, and let the city know that we are not afraid of church-building, but let us drink the devil's cup right down to its last hot drop." We vainly suppose we have made advances upon Athenian idolatry, whereas we may but have changed the outward and visible form. There are more idols in London, in Paris, or in New York, than ever there were in Athens; not marble idols, but idols we can hide, expensive idols, ruinous idols, idols that will make us worship them, idols that infuse their poison into the blood, and taint the inner life of the heart. Athens was quite a godly, clean little city compared to either of the cities I have named. Were Paul to come to London, Paris, or New York, he would see fashion, fortune, ease, ambition, self-seeking; yet a census could be taken even of these idols; but we scorn little Athens in mighty, measureless London, for every man is his own idol! When Christianity undertakes a man's education it never rests until it shows him that every heart is its own idol; and Christianity alone can take away a man's self out of himself, and associate him with the larger life which is called Divine. Man is not a mere unit, a single and detached individual, but he sustains responsibilities to the sum total of life in all the universe, and must give an account to every creature below him and above him; for he may have stopped Divine currents, or interposed in the on-rush of Divine influence in the universe. That is the worst kind of idolatry. Stone idols may be so many marble steps up to the highest altar; but when the heart is its own idol, and its own idolater, nothing can break up the deadly paganism but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The break-up does not come through schooling, through book-reading, and through crafty devices in language; the break-up comes through crucifixion, so that idol and idolater are nailed to Christ's grim Cross, and there they die amid the sevenfold night of Divine wrath, and out of that death there comes the resurrection, which is immortality. The Athenian pagan might be led away argumentatively from stone deities to higher intellectual conceptions of deific being and force; but the pagan heart never listens to logic, and never cares for intellectual appeals. Only one thing can break the heart-idol "the hammer of the Lord," that could grind to powder the stoniest heart that ever shut out the clemency and love of Heaven. To that "hammer" we must look, in that hammer we must trust. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."

Paul did a little introductory work. Paul, as we have often seen, always began just where the opportunity permitted him to begin. "He disputed in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons," and he found a custom in Athens of meeting in the market-place, which was the general school-house of the city; and there learned men were talking upon learned subjects, and Paul listened. Having listened, he spoke, as he had a right to do according to Athenian custom, but he so spoke as to bring upon himself the contemptuous name of "babbler" literally "seed-pecker"; one who took little seeds to pieces; who separated one little seed from another. "What will this seed-pecker say? He is evidently nibbling at something, poor little, small-minded, weak-eyed man with Jewish cast of face what will he say?" "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods." The word "strange "in this reference to Paul's doctrine in the twentieth verse "Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears" means startling things. The Gospel startles; it never comes easily and smoothly into any civilization it flames, it throbs like thunder, flashes like lightning, plashes like deluges of water from infinite heights; so that men say, "What is this?" Jesus did not come to send peace on the earth, but a sword, not quietness, but fire! The Gospel is not to be received slumberingly. Tf you can receive it slumberingly, you do not really hear it; if you can preach it slumberingly, you do not really preach it. The Gospel is not a sleep, it is a resurrection; it is the trumpet of immortality!

The Athenians were interested in the matter from an intellectual point of view. Some said, "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods; let us hear what he has to say about them." That is not religious inquiry; that is mere speculative excitement. If you want to know what religious inquiry is, recall an instance which has just passed under our review. The jailer at Philippi said: What must I do to be saved?" The Athenians said: "May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is?" Mark the difference between the one question and the other. The Philippian jailer was in earnest; the Athenian philosophers were simply speculative, willing to turn the conversation into a new channel, and not unwilling to hear a strange speaker discourse with strange eloquence upon strange subjects. Are we typified by the Philippian jailer or by the Athenian stoic? Why are we in church? How many of us are in fiery earnest to know God's will and do it? How many of us are inclined to a little philosophical dispute, and to a little intellectual debate? And how many of us are not unwilling to experience a new spiritual sensation? Only let it be as short and trenchant as possible, but we are not unwilling just to hear what some seed-pecker may have to say. Let us be honest with ourselves in this matter. If we are in God's house for the purpose of really ascertaining and obeying God's word, all heaven will be aflame with sacred light, and every guest at God's table will be satisfied and refreshed; but if we are here in the Athenian spirit, we may be disappointed and mocked; great questions will go with little answers, or little questions will be mocked by irrelevant replies.

Paul will speak; he was always ready to speak. But they were learned men he, too, was learned, but not in their sense. He was learned in the one subject that he cared for. So many men are burdened with unavailable learning. Paul was learned in his Gospel. He asked for no time to prepare in; he would not return and dispute with refined disputants when he had had sufficient time to make preparation of an intellectual and rhetorical kind. Instantly he stood up, and to stand up was to establish himself in the confidence of all who heard him, as an extraordinary man at the least. What came afterwards would be seen; no man could despise him who listened to his revelations. To begin his statement he said, "Ye men of Athens." That was Demosthenic; the great orator always began his appeal in those very words. Paul often began, "Men, brethren, and fathers." Alas! he was in a city where there were no "brethren." He must begin upon the broad human relation. There the 'true preacher can always begin. He cannot always say "Dear friends," for there may be none; "brethren," for that may be an unknown term. Had Paul begun by calling the Athenians "brethren," they would have accosted his salutation with unanimous and contemptuous laughter. There is genius even here. There is a gift of God in these little matters, as well as in matters that are greater. Paul was never wanting in tact; he knew how to open the door and how to enter in. Mark the simple dignity of the salutatory form. They were "men;" they met upon a common platform; there could be no dispute as to the character in which they stood as to one another. "I am a man speaking to men." In salutation there should be no controversy. Then the next: "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious," or too "religiously-minded." Mark the broad and generous recognition. Do not affront the people you intend afterwards to persuade. Do not mock the idols you are about to sweep away. There are two methods of delivering a country from idolatry. The one is to override the country, so to say, by military force, taking away all brazen gods, and marble deities, and figured divinities, and so, Jehu-like, destroying Baal out of Israel. That is not destruction. The other way is to reason, to persuade, to displace, to expel the false by the introduction of the true not to deride an idol, but to preach a Saviour. So Paul recognizes what he sees; he says, "You seem to be excessively religious." He did not scorn them as idolaters, but credited them with a superabounding religious spirit and activity. "For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. I will begin where you end. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you." What infinite tact! What sublime adaptation of means to ends! "You yourselves," said Paul in effect, "will supply me with the text on the marble slab. You declare yourselves to be agnostics, or to have an unknown or unknowable God. So far you have come along the line of religious education; I will take up the matter where you have left it, and now you must listen to my appeal." That is the true method of preaching today. You must interpret to men what they do not interpret to themselves. It would be possible to go into some assemblies not called Christian and to say to them, "Men, you who think yourselves not religious are actually too religious." That would be a startling declaration to make to a number of atheists, secularists, or positivists; but it would be true in proportion as they were earnestly pursuing the subjects with which their labours are identified. Endeavour to make the most of a man. Every man has upon him this inscription who is out of Christ: "To the Unknown," and the Christian teacher has to say, "Then I will make it known to you. Do you ever yearn and long and desire and wish?" The reply would be, "Certainly I do; my whole life is one continual aspiration." Then as a Christian teacher I tell you that such aspiration is the beginning of prayer. What you ignorantly do, I declare unto you, in its broadest interpretations. You cannot exclude prayer from life. I hear you say, "I wish "; "I would "; "I long for"; "I yearn for "; "I desire ." Why, these are the negative terms which are equivalent, in Christian language, to "I pray." You are praying in some sort of dumb, uncertain, troubled way. I am not going to mock you as an atheist, or tell you that you are an agnostic, or fasten upon you some stigmatizing term. I heard you just now sighing, desiring, yearning; I saw you lift up your poor head in an attitude of expectation and hope, and I said, "Behold, he prayeth, and did not know it." I will not have you called "infidel," and "unbeliever," "outsider," and "Philistine." Have I not seen your fingers laced as if you wanted to say something for which there are no words? That is prayer. Call it negative prayer, call it dumb prayer, call it inarticulate prayer, I hardly care for the epithet by which you qualify it; it is my business to tell you that you are not atheistic, or godless, or prayer-less, or lost; but in you there is the beginning of the kingdom of heaven.

Or take it from another point. Do you suffer for others? Do you say you will endure hunger that others may be satisfied; you will sit up all night that others may sleep; you will take upon you the full burst of the storm that others may be quiet at home? Is it in that noble language you speak? If so, that is the beginning of sacrifice. The Cross is in those sacred words. You are not a worldling; you are not a scoffer; you are not an atheist. You do not know it, but I tell you that by every act of heroic suffering, that others may escape pain, you represent the mystery of the Cross; you show forth in human form the transcendent glory of the work of Christ. Do not let men come and rub out the inscription, "To the Unknown God," as if you had committed an insult to high Heaven. You have come along the philanthropic line, the educational line, and you have got right up to that point, saying, "I am willing to suffer that some other man may not suffer. I would I could take half the pain which my friend endures and so divide the agony with him, that there might be two of us to carry the burden instead of one." Thou art not far from the kingdom of God! If some Paul should meet you some great, heroic, inspired Paul he would tell you that such an offer, such a feeling or impulse, on your part, meant, being fully interpreted, the very Cross and agony of Christ. Or, take it from another point. Are you dissatisfied with earth and time? Are you filled with discontentment? Do you say, "I have drunk every goblet, and still my thirst remains; I have tried every medicine, but my disease is untouched; I have hunted over every field for pleasure, and have never found it"? That is the beginning of immortality; it is "the divinity that stirs within you." See the greatness of man in his very discontentment with earth and time and sense. He takes it up, says he will absorb it, does absorb it, and then says, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What is the meaning of that? You are not a secularist; you are not a dust-worshipper; you are not oh, believe me! a base groundling. You have got down to those experiences to learn that it is not in matter, time, space, sense, to satisfy the infinite faculty which makes you akin with God. Why not start from that point? Why not give broad interpretations to human instincts and human experiences?

This text of Paul's is in every man; every life furnishes a Mars' Hill from the top of which Christian preachers may preach. The sun does not plant the root, but warms it into fulness of life. The witness of God is in every one of us, and answers to the claim of the written Book. Here is the grand appeal of the Cross. It comes to something that is already in us. It is one revelation speaking to another, and in proportion as the two revelations harmonize, supplement, and complete one another, is the inspiration of the Scripture proved, and the grandeur of human capacity established.